Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, Weissenhaus 2025: Gukesh loses again to Caruana in second-leg of quarterfinal, to play 5th-8th place playoff

Classical World Champion, India’s D. Gukesh lost the second leg of the quarterfinal match against USA’s Fabiano Caruana in the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam tour in Hamburg, Germany on Monday.

This loss resulted in Gukesh getting knocked out from the top-four race following his back-to-back losses in a two-legged quarterfinal to Caruana.

The 18-year-old will now play for the 5th-8th place Playoff in the coming days.

Caruana needed just 18 moves to make his way in the semifinals. Playing with White, Caruana gained an advantage right from the start and kept the momentum in his side to crush the Indian counterpart.

The American will take on the winner between Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov and another American Hikaru Nakamura.

In other games, World No. 1, Magnus Carlsen is having a favourable position against Nodirbek Abdusattorov at the time of writing and looks poised to qualify for the top four.

Frenchman Alireza Firouzja has a better position against Germany’s Vincent Keymer in a must-win match.